


I'll Call You When I Come Down

by Missy



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Brownies, F/M, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Humor, Old Lovers, POV Third Person Limited, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years after the arrival of the 80s Jackie is a status-seeking news anchor and Hyde, still in charge of Grooves at Point Place, is a wannabe concert promoter.  When he invites her to his first show she easily leaves behind her stressful job for road food, 'special' brownies and Bon Jovi tapes.  But as they reach the end of the road Jackie has to figure out why she and Hyde are still drawn to each other after all these years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Call You When I Come Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [portions_forfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/gifts).



> Written for the fourth ship swap for portions_forfox. I love Jackie/Hyde a whole lot, and I wanted to thank you for leaving a prompt that allowed me to expound on that! Hope you like!

**Cleveland, Ohio  
Early Summer, 1988**

“Tonight at eleven, a five-alarm fire on Elm and Twelfth shuts down traffic to the eastbound connector – will your morning commute be affected? Elsewhere, gas prices are finally starting to fall and it looks like we can expect them to stay low for Fourth of July weekend, but what about that all-important holiday season? Dick Ward will be by to tell you tonight. How’s the weather looking, Charlie?” Jackie’s eyes locked onto the lens, smiling her Crest-bright smile as she threw to KZZY’s local weatherman, Charlie Mahoney, for the third time that week. She watched the red light flick off and then knew it was safe to quickly pick a tiny fleck of cabbage leaf from its annoying hiding place behind her front right molar.

In the two years she’d spent working as the most popular anchorwoman in the twenty-fifth most viewed market in the country (just behind Milwaukee and just before St. Louis, she’d tell anyone who asked her with a grin), she’s become a pretty valuable member of the ABC affiliate's newsroom. After college in St. Paul, she’d moved on to Chicago, from Chicago to Houston, from Houston to Pittsburgh, and from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. She was climbing closer and closer to her (only eight-year-old but still completely valid, okay, Donna?) lifelong dream of anchoring a major network news telecast – or at the very least a co-hosting gig on PM Magazine.

Jackie may have lacked the interest necessary to snag a job on the political beat that would speed and secure her climb to the top of the network food chain, but she was confident that two things would see her through instead: the camera’s love affair with her face and her ability to radiate pure sincerity. She knew, had known just from watching Christine St. George back in her gopher days, what the television game was about – and it was that indefinable quality that Jackie possessed in spades.

When Charlie threw back to her, she gave them what they wanted. “All of this and more tonight at eleven on your home for news, KZZY.”

Then the red-hot studio lights went down and she breathed a sigh of relief. This stand-up piece would play during the prime-time hours, exposing Jackie’s voice to thousands of strangers at regular hourly intervals before she graced them again with her presence by going back on the air for the eleven o’clock news.

“Good work.” Her floor manager, John, gave her a grin as she spun from the desk and strolled toward the craft services table situated several feet away from the set.

“Thanks,” she said. “You don’t think I was too…shiny, do you?” She reached for a thin blue paper plate and started piling it up with food. She tried to be through with her makeup but sometimes the cracks showed through.

“No, you looked…great,” he said expansively, shrugging. “Just great.”

She glared, turning on him, the mountain of lettuce she’d lumped on her plate quivering indignantly. “If I look like an Oompa Loompa I swear to God I’m going to get you transferred to Father Semple’s Sunday Morning Prayer Meeting!”

“But I’m allergic to sequins!” 

“Then don’t mess with me!" John shrank back as she stomped away. "I’m going to be in my dressing room until you need me for the next standup.” 

Jackie watched John leave and puffed her bangs from her eyes. Once upon a time she'd promised herself never to treat people the way she’d witnessed Christine St. George treat them. But working in this business, adrift, with only her own judgment and self-belief to lean on, she’d come to understand her ex-co-worker’s way of thinking. In television news you had to behave like a so-called bitch or watch yourself get passed up for assignment after assignment. Jackie had already survived the flower show circuit; she wasn’t going back there.

Minutes later she stood alone in her dressing room, the biggest and best on the floor, loaded up with amenities like a private bathroom and a twelve-inch television enabled with closed circuit cable. Jackie rested her food on the bright pink marble makeup table to her left as she unscrewed her heavy golden earrings and kicked one of her spiked heels off. She surveyed the feminine and elegant surroundings with jaded eyes; all told she’d rather be out dancing, or in her penthouse suite watching Dallas with a pint of ice cream on a night like this. The thought brought about a stab of surprise in memory of the strobelight throb of her ambition; she had to shove away that softer idea as she punched the red, blinking light on her answering machine.

The first call was from a contact, and she made a few notes on a heart-shaped pad – they’d get passed down to research for clearance and an eager cub in the bullpit who wanted to do the legwork because Jackie Burkhart didn’t do research anymore. The second was from Donna, thanking her on behalf of Donna’s two-year-old for the fifty dollars Jackie had slipped between the clown-printed folds of her birthday card this past week. Jackie decided to call Donna back when she had the extra time – probably over the weekend. The gesture had been pure charity on Jackie’s part anyway, and in her opinion the right thing to do since Donna and Eric were too busy trying to save the whales or feed the dolphins or whatever poor people did with their time these days to give her goddaughter the pretty things she deserved.

The third set her statue-still on her feet.

“Jackie. I’m in the lobby and the Sandinistas you work for don’t think I know you. Buzz me up.”

She yanked her remaining suede heel off her foot and slapped it into the machine, which let out a pathetic whine. “How dare you beep at me, don't you know who I am?” She asked, as its flickering light grew alarming fast. Jackie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, took a second of meditation - it was easier to yell at the machine than to yell at the guy waiting for her in the lobby of the television studio. 

The last time she'd seen him they hadn’t exchanged words – she’d just poured a bowl of clam dip down his pants. He deserved it for setting Fez up with Miss Milwaukee Old Gold two weeks after their break-up had finally stuck. It may have been for Eric and Donna's wedding, but that wasn't a good enough excuse to shatter Jackie's heart. Fez had returned the favor and set him up with a shampoo model from the barber college he'd then-recently co founded. Jackie had come to the wedding solo, had been forced to watch all of her major exes do the electric slide with attractive women who weren't named Jackie – and had finally snapped when their happiness became too much for her to endure. 

 

She glared at the phone. Jackie told herself she ought to leave him to rot. Told herself but couldn’t convince herself. 

 

She didn't have enough primping time, only minutes left to renew her lipstick before she heard his knock. Jackie pulled open the door, and there he was. “Steven?” Why hadn't she forced herself to call him Hyde? They weren't intimate enough anymore for emotional grandiosity anymore. 

“I don’t believe you’re still working for the man,” he said by way of greeting. Then, in a softer tone – just slightly, “can I come in?”

She shrugged, got out of the way, allowing herself a minute to examine his form. He truly hadn’t changed at all - same hair, same sunglasses, same black tee-shirt (though, she noted quickly, bearing a different name – eww, Metallica?). And he was still eerily self-confident, walking right into the heart of her lair and flopping down on the bench next to her crimping iron.

“What do you want?” she asks, closing the door.

“No nukes after Sunday,” he said. 

Of course. Only Hyde would dare try to do this to her, though normally he has a point hidden behind his sarcasm. What could it be? Whatever it was she wasn't about to let him thrive off of her humiliation. “I'm really busy, so if you don't have anything to say...” 

She knew he was rolling his eyes behind those shades. “Do you have like, an hour or something? I need your…” he cringed. “Advice.”

Jackie couldn't tamp down her excitement. “Oh Steven. I never thought you’d ask me. I know a barber with shop two blocks from here and he’s open late on Fridays…”

He ducked her offered hand. “Nobody’s touching this hair,” he said, “and I need to talk to you about something else. Do you have the time or not?”

She considered the question. As fun as it was to have him by the balls she still didn’t have the time to let him twist in the wind. “Okay, start talking,” she said, picking up her sprout-and-avocado sandwich and alternating bites with the salad she'd made.

“I’m promoting my first rock concert this weekend.” It’s somehow natural for him to open with a little confident bragging, but he'd never seemed so ambitious to her. “It’s almost sold out, but we're having problems with the tightwads running the arena. You know TV people, and I hope…”

“You want me to give you free publicity.” Of course he did.

“No, I want somebody to make the famous knobs I hired look good. If somebody like you throws their weight behind my word the owners won't worry about it turning it into another Portland!”

“What did they do in Portland?!” 

“Nothing, don't sweat it - deep fryer fires are hard to put out.” He shrugged. “Are you going to help?”

She could say literally anything she wanted to at this point and still win the fight. But for some reason making him beg when he was in such dire straits didn't seem like a lot of fun.

So she shrugged. “Okay.”

“Good. The truck’s waiting outside…”

“Wait, what truck?”

Hyde stood. “MY truck. The concert’s in Kansas City….”

“You said an hour! I didn’t agree to Kansas City...."

"I said I needed your advice for an hour. Your help might take six..."

"Kansas City is twelve hours from here!” she yelled. 

"But it’s tomorrow night,” he said. “Leave with me and I'll get you back by Monday.”

The unsaid was stronger than the present offer. _Run away with me._ This was new – they’d never run together anywhere, just away FROM one another. 

This was it, Jackie realized. The only chance she’d ever have to pick Steven Hyde apart and get to see how he worked. Weird to feel that way about a guy she’d dated for over a year, but the thought remained with her – _I’ll get to understand him, get over him, and then I can put Point Place away for good._ “I get to control the radio,” she said sternly. “And you're not going to make me eat anything disgusting.” 

“You can pick the music but I’m picking the food,” he said. “They don’t have Tavern on the Greens on the road.”

She sighed. “I’m paying,” she said.

“Deal,” he said. 

Jackie took a moment to snag her purse from the closet and put on a better pair of shoes – flats, she shuddered to herself. He followed her out of her dressing room and she double-checked the call lights to make sure they were off the air. “John,” she screeched, “Can you get Lew to cover me?”

He’d still been by the craft services table, and as he tried to chase her out of the studio and to the hallway leading to the elevator she could see the panic in John’s eyes. “Lew?! He’s at that cockatiel convention in Oxnard…”

“Then just call Julie. I’ll try to get back by Monday.” She could feel Hyde’s judgment radiating from his body but ignored him completely.

John meanwhile couldn’t seem to conjure up any magic words to make her stay, so he leaned on that old reliable accusation. “Jackie, this is crazy!”

“It’s going to be fine. I have ten sick days I haven’t used, and aren’t they always complaining I never take breaks?” she asked, knowing she hadn't, forsaking Christmases and Thanksgivings to remain on duty. “Tell management I got sick.” John looked as surprised as she felt; twenty-three minutes ago this studio and this career had meant everything to her; suddenly she was running toward the elevator with the boy she’d shed at seventeen.

“OK. But YOU OWE ME!” yelled John.

She lifted her shoulders and shrugged as the doors opened and she and Hyde jumped in. Somehow she’d be nicer to John when she got back, just to reward him for the favor spent. 

Every girl was allowed a moment of insanity in her life, she decided, and let the doors close.

*** 

**One Hour on the Road**

** 

As they hit interstate seventy it occurred to Jackie that she'd left the studio without her jacket. How chilly does it get at night in the middle of the prairie? She didn't know.

“I swear that if I catch cold I’m going to end you,” she told the alarmingly clean window. For an old Ford van painted from roof rack to bumper with psychedelic art of long-dead musicians it was surprisingly sturdy and well-maintained. Hyde had never seemed like a car guy to her, had never really been a possessions guy beyond his shades and music and weed. She recalled his desolate room at the Foreman’s and shuddered.

“Ice queens don’t get sick,” said Hyde, sucking her out of her bohemian fantasy.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Shut up, you’ll be fine,” he said dismissively enough to make her blood boil.

“I know,” she sneered. “But I need a blanket if we have to sleep here. Do you have anything in the glove compartment?” She reached for it and tapped her nail against the closure, causing it to spring open.

“Damn it, Jackie,” he muttered. “That took me all day to fix….Hey, don’t mess with my stuff!”

Unsurprisingly the bounty she’d unveiled was random and colorful, and she unsubtly picked her way through the mess as she reorganized it into a proper pile; rolls of half-unspooled Zig-Zag paper, a pack of odd-smelling M&Ms, some guitar picks, a series of photocopied pamphlets decrying the rise of Madonna as a government-planned conspiracy to distract the world from the AIDS epidemic and an endless number of cassette tapes. Under all of that was the car’s license and registration, and she neatly re-stacked the tapes around it.

Jackie couldn't resist scanning the titles as she went. Most of them were typical Hyde fodder; Zepp, the Doors, the Stones. At the very bottom of the pile there was a grey cover that drew her gaze and an amused squawk. “My GOD.”

“Those M&MS are cherry. Just shut up and let me wallow in my grunge,” he said.

Jackie held the tape over her head. “This is Bon Jovi.”

Did she denote a bit of panic in his voice? “No! It’s a Deep Purple tape in a Bon Jovi case!”

“This is Slippery When Wet. This is hair metal. YOU like hair metal!” 

“Give it to me!”

He reached for her blindly with his free hand but she had already plucked the tape from its case and had made a dive for the deck. She shoved it blindly into its home and was rewarded by the sound of Jon Bon Jovi wailing that love was a social disease. 

The car skidded rightward and Hyde gave it a sharp tug to correct the course. Jackie sat up and shoved back her well-teased hair, laughing all the while. 

Hyde stared dead ahead, bursting out with, “BON JOVI IS ABOUT REBELLING AGANST THE MAN.”

“Hair. Metal,” Jackie repeated confidently.

They sunk into silence as the cab of the truck filled with the poppy enthusiasm of Ritchie Sambora’s solo.

**** 

**Three Hours on the Road**

*** 

“…But what do you think he means by ‘giving love a bad name’? Is the song really about herpes?”

Hyde’s fingers flexed against the wheel. He said nothing to her but his whole attitude was one of total emotional detachment – full-on zen. Jackie glanced at the clock embedded in the dash, saw it was almost ten and wondered how they were making out at the studio without her.

Somehow all of their old layers were back up, the defenses honed and trained. It got under Jackie’s skin, itching….itching.

Ugh, she hadn’t taken off her stage make-up. The stuff was caking into her pores and if she didn't rinse it she'd end up breaking out. There was nothing to do about that but fix it.

“Do you have any wet wipes in this death trap?” she asked him, squirming about, trying to see behind her into the belly of the mechanical beast behind her.

“Next to the bidet and the hot shave set-up,” he said. 

“Sarcasm won’t solve problems,” said replied. “I’ve got studio makeup on me, do you know how oily this stuff is?”

“I’ve got six Hardees napkins somewhere in the map sleeve,” Hyde said. “There’s probably enough melted ice in one of those cups to wash your face.”

Her lip curled. “How far are we from the next truck stop?” The notion felt only incrementally better than washing her face with Hyde’s backwash but she'd take it.

“Probably another hour.” He was watching her. His tone asked _can you take it?_

“I can wait,” she said.

Hyde focused on the dark highway running endlessly out before them. Primly, Jackie nestled her head against the backrest and watched the dreamcatcher he’d stapled to the rear-view mirror hula-hoop violently in midair over their heads.

***

**Five Hours on the Road**

*** 

Two hours later she broke, but not because of her skin. “God, I’m starving.” She'd only taken a couple of prim bites of her salad and sandwich, had been on a diet for the past three days; it was passing midnight and she needed something to survive on.

 

Hyde had the right answer. “Chill, I’ve got a bag of brownies under the seat.” 

Jackie found it where he said, pulling it into the light; a plain brown paper bag and a sandwich baggie filled with homemade “You still bake?” She knew all about his special brownies and the effect they had on others.

“Never stopped,” he said. “I have a reputation to maintain. And it fills up the long nights.”

She eyeballed the bag for a moment. Then the realization dawned on her and she almost flung the bag from her. “We’re transporting pot across state lines in Reagan’s America,” she gaped. “Steven, we have to get rid of these! I’m too pretty and too well-known to go to jail!” As she ranted he turned off the highway, to a quiet rest stop. Then he turned off the gas and pulled the bag out of her hand.

That silenced the questions bubbling wildly in Jackie’s throat. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Getting rid of them,” he said, shoving the brownie between his teeth.

“A whole dozen? You’ll get sick!” 

But he knew that. She knew he knew that she'd be susceptible to this brand of charm. His smile was smug as he extended the bag toward her…

**** 

****Interlude:  
** ** A Mile from the Airport Connector  
A Truck Stop in Missouri 

***

It had been five years to the day since her last joint. They’d had a circle just before Donna and Eric’s wedding, puffing a tiny roach clip in turn, trying to get buzzed without getting stoned and failing miserably. Collectively, they'd all ended up stinking of the stuff, and her most prevalent memory was of the priest staring at her accusingly as he wed her friends together. 

Even in her teens she’d never really been into edibles; they’d been Hyde’s specialty but she’d avoided them for fear of getting too messed up to walk. But times had changed - for the first time in her life she found herself sitting next to her ex-boyfriend slamming down brownies and laughing with him. She told him anecdotes about John; he told her about Leo, who was impossibly still alive, still working at Grooves, still absent-mindedly confusing Pat Benatar with Joan Jett.

Suddenly his expression changed. With a furrowed brow, he took off his sunglasses and reached toward her. “You’ve got chocolate on your nose,” he said.

Jackie started chuckling, biting down another mouthful of weedcake, rubbing at the brown bit, feeling something smear. “This is grody,” she complained, wiping her hand on the empty bag.

“Thanks for not wiping it on my seat cover.”

She rolled her eyes. “I should’ve - I don’t think it could get darker.” Her eyes widened. "They're non more black."

He frowned. “I didn't shampoo these carpets for bad Spinal Tap jokes.”

“You shampooed these carpets?” she asked, raising a coy eyebrow. Hyde turned stone-faced. “You cleaned the truck for me?”

He glared at her as she cackled. “OH MY GOD YOU TOTALLY CLEANED YOUR TRUCK FOR ME!” The brownies had made her louder, too. She took another bite and whoops – there it went – she’d danced over the border from happy, mellow buzz into a loud, dizzying, goofy one. 

“I only did it because I knew you'd bitch if I didn’t,” he said. 

“No I wouldn't have. I've learned how to slum. How did you know I’d go with you, anyway?”

“’Cause you like a challenge,” said Hyde. “And so do I.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So I guess this…” she gestures at the truck, it’s partially dilapidated state, and his half-sack of brownies “means there still isn’t a ‘Missus Hyde’ yet, huh?”

“She’s into grunge, too,” Hyde said.

“Ugh, why do you keep saying that word?” 

“Because it’s going to be the next big thing,” he said. "Trust me - as soon as people climb out of this lame synth pop hole they've been rolling around in they're going to hear from the underground scene and it's going to blow their minds."

"Right. Bon Jovi is so anti-mainstream." His clear disappointment made her laugh. She picked up a fresh brownie with the tips of her fingers, rubbed it between them, and scratched the side of her face. “Are you still done with…her?” she couldn’t even bring herself to say Samantha’s name.

“Sam? Me and half of Las Vegas,” he said. “I date, it’s cool….why, are you looking to tie me down, Miss Sweetheart of the Midwest?”

She rolled her eyes. What kind of question was that? “Hardly.”

“Good. I’m still a rambler - I don’t have time for love,” he said. “I have the shop, I have my music, I have my zen…”

His expression wavered for just a second. Jackie saw it but felt too exuberant to try to puncture his shell. Instead she started on another brownie, and felt the last bit of her composure slip away.

She must have been giggling again; Steven seemed concerned. “Uh, Jackie? How many fingers am I holding up?”

She found that question to be so ridiculous that she burst into raucous laughter. “Pft, who cares? God, you’re so witty…and tall…and only a little bald.” She finished the last bite of brownie, then whipped off her paisley-blue scarf. “It’s hot in here.”

Hyde eyeballed her, his fingers itching toward her hand. “Jackie, I’m going to say five words I’ve never, ever said - I think you’ve had enough.” He balled up the bag and tossed it into the stygian darkness behind the seats.

His words registered dimly - Jackie gasped and pushed them aside. “Oh my God Steven….” She grabbed his hands in hers. “I need a Big Gulp. Right now.”

Pulling out of his grasp and wheeling toward the open van door she heard him calling her name, but there was no time to waste. The truckstop’s convenience store was only a short hike from where he’d parked, and she ran toward the fluorescent flood lights and threw the door wide. Her eyes fell to the pile of blue handcarts propped beside her and plunged into the world of readymade delights. She dumped a pint of ice cream into the bin – some candy bars – a bag of Sun Chips – a pair of pink sunglasses with brass stems- and finally a blanket. By the time Hyde found her she was flipping through the tabloids.

“Jackie,” he said strongly.

“STEVEN. Find out if they have sunblock! It’s going to be sunny tomorrow and I’m not going to get wrinkles!”

“JACKIE!” he called.

“And get me a Big Gulp! Iced tea or blue slushie…” He grabbed her by the shoulders, steered her back toward the sunglass station – and allowed her to see under that her stage makeup had run, had melded with streaks of brownie in various, unconnected places all over her face, making her look like a hobbit.

Her scream echoed through the night air.

****  


**Eight Hours on the Road**

*** 

Jackie said nothing.

If she spoke up she’d lose it. So the silence closed around them as the car barreled onward into the hours of darkness that lay at the most threatening point of dawn. 

She closed her eyes. What would Jessica do in this weird, untenable situation? No, she said, memories from a recently-read biography filling her mind, she wouldn’t do what Jessica would do. 

She'd decided to feign sleep when Hyde opened his mouth. “So why didn’t you stay with Fez?” he asked. It was a goading question, but a fair one after she’d brought up Samantha.

Jackie’s answer was truthful. “Because he didn’t want me anymore,” she said. “It was the early eighties, his salon was really popular and girls were throwing themselves at him all the time. And no matter how perfect I thought we were for each other he couldn’t say no to them.”

“Yeah. He told me that life was a beautiful garden and he wanted to pluck all the rutabegas he could get,” Hyde said. 

“Maybe he has a fetish for veggies,” observed Jackie. She closed her eyes tightly. “Or bees…or something.” Her already ruined buzz was crashing.

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s a damn fool.”

She raised an eyebrow, didn’t raise her lids. But Jackie was glad that she’d washed off her make-up back at the rest stop, even under the watch of all of those prying eyes. Coming down always made her melancholy, she lied to herself. And with her mascara off he wouldn’t be able to see the tracks of her tears.

***  
**Ten Hours on the Road**

*** 

She woke with a start to a blast of air conditioning wafting up her nose. “Muh….could you just….” The air conditioner pitched downward audibly and she let out a happy sigh. Weakly she reached over for the sack of groceries and pulled out her sunglasses, pushing them up her nose.

Then, and without asking first, she slumped to the left and into the warmth of his shoulder. All at once she was swept back in time. She was sixteen, at Point Place, in Eric Foreman’s disgusting basement, making out with Hyde – sitting on his lap in the circle – watching game shows with his arm around her shoulders. Horrifying him with her need for domesticity, her nesting instincts. The inevitable wrenching apart just as he was ready to propose to her. 

He didn’t smell like any other man she knew. Steven was Aqua Velva and pine cream and hot wax and weed and sweat. He was dirty and hot and sweet and smooth and bad and good. A thousand things warred in her mind when she thought of him, but the truest fact of the matter lay central to her thoughts – he comforted her.

“I’m only letting you do this because you’re tired,” he said.

She smiled into his shoulder, golden sunlight forming a gleaming scar at the rim of her eyelids.

*** 

 

 **Nine Hours Later  
** Kansas City, Kansas  
Saturday Afternoon 

And all at once she was awake.

Jackie jerked away from Steven’s shoulder, threw a bleary look at the world around her and rubbed her mussed curls into place. How had he gotten them there? But he had, and now he was sleeping beside her, sun reflecting off of his shades.

She decided not to wake him up; she needed more time to think. Which meant that Jackie would have to do the one thing she hated to do – sweat as she made a couple of laps around the building looking for the ladies' bathroom a hot dog cart. 

After using the faculties and re-applying a fresh coat of makeup, Jackie confronted the stand. Two minutes later she was sitting outside the arena, tearing into a hot dog daubed with extra relish, a lemonade and a bag of potato chips and watching bursts of metalheads strut through the front gate. 

If Hyde wanted to find her, he’d find her – and she, permanent romantic that she was, absolutely believed he would. Jackie didn’t need flowery speeches and Hyde didn’t need her to apologize for her years-old transgressions with Kelso. After the ride they had shared nothing more was necessary. She had faith in them, that it would all turn out right, for the first time in her life.

Until the sun started to set. And the music pouring out of the arena grew ominously louder. 

Teary-eyed, she met the gaze of a woman with neon-colored makeup. The punkette, her hair teased out into a halo of bright aqua, lifted her chin in acknowledgement of Jackie’s existence. She prepared to sign an autograph. Instead, she heard: “Bitchin’ owl eyes, dudette!” and got a pair of devil horns – complete with a tongue wag.

Her smile was painfully fake as the girl retreated. Jackie then eyeballed her hot dog, growled and smashed it to the ground. “Screw this,” she mumbled, and charged her way to the gate, her press pass a cudgel to any naysayers trying to hold her back. She washed her tear-stained, smudged face in another ladies room, then took the last of her change and shoved it into one of the pay phones lined up on a bank in the lobby.

The phone burred twice in her tired ear before John picked up. “Jackie, where are you? Preston’s spitting nails, he wants to know when you’re gonna be back!”

She’d prepared a full speech, an explanation for her foolishness, when Sammy Hagar’s voice cut through the roaring din. “This next number goes out to Jackie Burkhart from Steven. Wherever you are, he thinks you’re pretty cool…for you.”

Jackie knew what that meant and her eyes again fountained tears - this time happy ones. “John, listen - can you get somebody to cover me?” The words gushed from her, a quick, sharp ejaculation that scared an immediate ‘the hell?!’ from John. “I can’t go, John, I just can’t – I’ve got….” She mentally flailed for a reason. “Diarrhea?” she blurted out. 

“Fine, but Jackie you’ve got to get back soon.”

“I’ll call you when I come down,” she said, cutting off the conversation. She pivoted toward the music and ran up the ramp down to the floor.

But before she could get there a light and a camera were thrust into her line of vision. A well-manicured beauty queen of a reporter elbowed her way into what Jackie presumed was her shot - it took a moment for her eyes to orientate, right now she could see nothing more than dancing lights. "And here we have Jackie Burkhart, the sweetheart of Ohio. Ms. Burkhart is an ex-girlfriend of the promoters and surely knows something about his character. Ms. Burkart, do you believe your ex-boyfriend is mature and stable enough to promote this concert, or do you think he'll allow the Miami Nacho Incident to repeat itself in our beautiful town?"

Jackie took the microphone in-hand and said, seriously, "normally I'm a tough, hardened newswoman, and normally I would give you my opinion on the damage nacho fights have done to America's youth..but not when Van Halen is playing my favorite song! Bye!" She whirled away from the camera, yelling Steven's name.

She managed to find Hyde near the stage, his arms crossed, being bumped around by metalheads who milled nearer the front in a display of frustrated aggression. By then the band had ripped into “Jump”, and the audience expressed their confusion at the choice with shouts of _WE WANNA ROCK._. Jackie's reaction was to pogo her way down into the pit.

She reached him, finally. “I knew you didn’t ditch on me…” he trailed off, watching Jackie’s hop-stepping. “Jackie, what are you doing?”

“Pogoing!” she yelled back.

"Why? This isn't a Black Flag concert."

"Why are you talking about ant spray at a time like this? Steven, this is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for me! Thank you!”

“If anyone knows romance, it's me, right?" That self-deprecation - there it was, rare and shining like a jewel. "That’s not much of a contest,” he replied. She rolled her eyes. 

_WE WANNA ROCK._

“Dance with me.”

“What?”

“I SAID LET GO OF YOUR ‘ZEN’ BULLSHIT AND DANCE WITH ME!”

_WE WANNA ROCK._

It started gradually. With his arms crossed, Steven started to pogo, ignoring the thrashing, angry crowd behind him. “I feel stupid.”

“I feel alive,” Jackie yelled. 

_WE WANNA ROCK._

“You’ve always been alive,” Steven said.

“FOOD FIGHT!” someone in the pit yelled.

“Honestly,” she said. “I thought all I needed to do was find the perfect guy, but I was wrong. A guy doesn’t have to be your ideal to love you; he just has to want me, like me, respect me…” She shrugged, then at his non-reaction added, “that’s you, dumbass.”

“I missed you too,” he admitted. It was like pulling teeth but a start. 

Neither of them really intended to drift into each other’s grips, but the embrace that followed felt completely natural. And in a rain of French fries, burger bites, hot dogs, and soda, they kissed as if they were the only people in the whole world.

***

It was the first concert, the first road trip for Jackie and Hyde as a couple, but it wouldn't be the last. Hyde finally found the right niche for his bossy nature and music-loving tendencies; he became a full-fledged concert promoter, which allowed him enough financial flexibility to buy back a couple of the Grooves stores his father had sold off. Jackie landed a job as an entertainment host on a soft news program on John’s recommendation; in gratitude he was invited up to become the program’s co-producer.

Four years later Jackie and Hyde married. Their son Dakota Zen Burkhart-Hyde was born during a freak summer snowstorm at a local Washington DC hospital a year afterward. Jackie covered the process as part twelve of her highly rated thirteen-part series “Natural Childbirth: Is It As Grody as They Say?” 

It was, she decided, playing with her son’s unruly locks as he stared into her eyes. She felt Hyde gently squeeze her free arm and leaned weakly back into his grip, and decided it was definitely grody – but definitely worth it.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: - There was indeed a [Monsters of Rock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_of_Rock_Tour_1988) arena tour that featured Van Halen which played to arenas during the summer of 1988, and there was also indeed a food fight between fans on the upper and lower levels of the stadium at the Kansas City show, though probably not because metal purists were angry at a band doing their biggest bubblegum hit with a new lead singer. Sammy Hagar actually did “Jump” with the band as part of their regular set during the tour ([and here’s the recorded proof of that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQUggbJ8RXI)), so I took a little poetic license.
> 
> \- I used Google maps to guestimate the amount of time It’d take for Jackie and Hyde to drive from Ohio to Kansas City in the late 80's, with no digital maps and imperfect infrastructure. The wisdom says roughly twelve and a half hours by car with no traffic, so I fudged it a bit here and there to around thirteen.
> 
> \- The anchorwoman Jackie mentions, Jessica Savitch, definitely existed, though she’s become something of a tragic footnote in broadcast history (most people nowadays probably remember her as the basis for Veronica Corningstone, Christina Applegate’s character in the Legend of Ron Burgundy film series). Connie Chung, Linda Ellerbee, Joan Lunden and Jane Pauley were all huge during the time in which this story was set, but I figured Jessica was the sort of woman Jackie would see during her college days and thus look up to as a glamorous ideal.
> 
> \- Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" sort of falls into the divide between hair metal and rock, but Jackie wouldn't know better. And she'd totally tease Steven about owning a copy anyway.


End file.
